


Yet I Must Scream

by KL_1819



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anakin Has a Crush on Obi-Wan, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Depression, F/F, F/M, Fix It Fic, Found family (troupe and literal), In a sense, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, She's just trying to live with her fam, Suicidal Thoughts, The Force is Sentient (Star Wars), but nothing happens, interpret the relationship however you want, no beta we die like troopers, sequel rewrite, the force is female AND a lesbian, up to a point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29181681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KL_1819/pseuds/KL_1819
Summary: She winds her arms around Shmi, spreads her palms along her stomach, presses kisses from her cheek to her shoulder.Can I give you a gift, love? She whispers, and just once Shmi feels her, and nods.The Prequals, Originals, and (rewritten) Sequels through the eyes of the Force.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker, Finn/Rey (Star Wars), Leia Organa/Han Solo, Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, The Force/Shmi Skywalker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	1. The Son

There are so many people in the universe, and every single one is a part of her. She feels their life and death and loves and sorrows. There are even a few that can reach out and touch her, and she will link her fingers through their’s and they can do amazing things.

It should not be surprising that she falls in love with a woman that does not even know she is there. 

Shmi is a woman that looks like paper but is made of iron. She is a slave and she is used to work and pain, and she is beautiful even with the dirt on her face. If freeing Shmi was something she could do, she would, but she can only make it so any cruel masters suddenly find a strong urge to look the other way. 

When Shmi is taken to Tatooine, she radiates a level of loneliness and fear that makes her shudder. This woman has no idea of the power that always hovers at her shoulders, and she desperately wants someone to love and touch. 

She winds her arms around Shmi, spreads her palms along her stomach, presses kisses from her cheek to her shoulder.

_ Can I give you a gift, love?  _ She whispers, and just once Shmi feels her, and nods. 

*

The boy is beautiful. From the very minute of his birth he sings to her, and Shmi loves him more than anything else. His human mother gives him her name, Skywalker, a name that she loves more than the universe she is keeping alive. It makes her think of taking her love and her son out of this world, if she had the physical form to do it.

The name he is given is Anakin, and she thinks it sounds like perfection on her tongue. 

He is a slave just like his mother, and she hates this. She hates the species that decided to pluck others from their homes, to beat those they consider lesser, and perhaps this is the reason she does not bless the Hutts with her presence. Anakin is still a boy, after all, and before he is really old enough to be put to work she makes his days as happy as she can. When he jumps along the dunes, sometimes she grabs him around the waist and lifts him a little higher, she lets him know when Shmi needs some time alone, pushes him along a little faster when the bigger children try to bully him. His hair bleaches out under the suns until it is almost white, and his skin gets darker, and the winds make his cheeks just a bit too rough. 

When the man that owns them realizes Anakin can podrace, she fumes. It is a dangerous sport that humans can not do, and Shmi hates it as much as she does. Shmi is human, and can only ring her hands in worry and beg their son to be careful, but she can make sure that he lives. When he gets on the track she makes sure to nudge him, urge him  _ no no go right  _ to avoid getting splattered onto the sands, and he follows her advice as swiftly as the wind. When he comes home covered in dust and Shmi wraps her arms around their boy and sobs, she will hover and stroke his dirt covered hair and whisper  _ I’d never let him die love, it would break my heart.  _

Anakin learns how to mess with electrics; finds a way to make artificial life from metal and wires, learns the language of numbers. It makes her proud. It is not something Shmi teaches him, it is not something she helps him with, it is something all his own. While he works to make Shmi an extra hand around the house, she places a hand on his shoulder, and says  _ Make sure he’s polite dear, so many people aren’t _ . 

She is never sure if he sees her or not. He is hers as much as he is Shmi’s, as much as he is human he is not. Sometimes when she places hands on him his eyes will follow her and he will smile and she will feel such joy. He never speaks to her directly, but sometimes on the dune he will try to hold her hand, and in the mornings he will tell Shmi about the woman that sings him to sleep. He knows these things, knows more about his family than his mother really does. Enough so that when the children say that Shmi’s a whore because she won’t admit who his father is he smirks, and his eyes flicker to her, and the insults never land.

He knows so much, but for nine years, he does not even know her name. 

*

Technically she exists everywhere, but her main focus has been on her son and her love for all these years, and she is surprised to see Jedi again. She likes them. They recognize the marks she leaves on their souls, and when they move with her it is like dancing. She knows each and every name, because they whisper to her on the daily, and she loves them in her own way. 

When Qui-Gon Jinn walks up to her son with a question about hyperdrives, she is cautious. The girl with him treats her son kindly, and when he mentions The Force she cannot help but beam. Her son knows her name, he knows what he is, after all these years. Shmi sees this Jedi that she does not know, and they talk long after Anakin has gone to sleep. They speak of magic and children and how there really was no father, and Shmi admits that nine months before she felt something loving envelop her and asked to give her a gift. 

She has never been happier. 

Then Qui-Gon asks Anakin to come with him, and her heart fractures just a bit. 

They want to make it so Anakin can learn the power his blood gives him, but he is nervous about leaving Shmi, and she does not want their little family to be split. Shmi cries as her son is led away, and she places two kisses on each of her love’s eyelids, twines her arms around her neck.  _ I will keep him safe. I swear it.  _ This is their son after all, and nothing will take him from her. 

Shmi might feel her then, because she reaches out as if to cup her cheek and then lowers her arm.  _ I love you,  _ she whispers, and she does, and for Shmi she will keep Anakin safe. By any means necessary. 

*

She sees the silver threads that drape off everyone, and none of them even realize it. Like cobwebs those iridescent strings tangle together wherever people meet. She thinks of them as the tying of souls together, and the more the thread gleams the more unbreakable it is. They snap more often than they knot, and even she can’t tell who will connect with who. 

When her son cautiously shakes the hand of one Obi-wan Kenobi, it is not a silver thread that knots, but one of gold. Already she is intrigued, yet cautious, because both of them have an unruly energy about them that could lead to trouble. Then the girl, the queen who pretends she is not one, Padme looks at both of them together and another gold thread blooms. All three bonded in shimmering yellow, and she is so curious, and she leans to her son and tells him to trust these two.  _ They will keep you safe,  _ she says, because some deep part of her knows it is true.

There is the council of Jedi, people that she knows so well that she can name them all. They stand in front of her own son, the child of what they worship and devote themselves too, and they say he loves Shmi too much to learn how to wield what he has been born with. A part of her burns, because they are speaking to  _ her son _ , but the Jedi have always been touchy when it comes to love. She has tried for years to show them the difference between love and attachment, but even those who consider themselves a force of good have trouble admitting they are wrong. 

Qui-Gon talks of chosen ones and prophecies, and she laughs because there is no method to her that anyone will ever be able to write down. If only they could see her in her glory, listen to her talk about that strong yet gentle woman on Tatooine, of how she loved her so much that she granted her a son. She is hopeful they will send Anakin back, back to Shmi and her gentle hands, and when Qui-Gon announces he will train Anakin instead she can feel Kenobi’s terror. He may be older than her son, but she knows he has always worried of never being worth the trouble, and his master choosing another right in front of him makes all those fears true. Kenobi should matter as much to her as any other Jedi, a distant family member she never sees often enough, but the thread between him and her son makes her protective, and she hisses to Qui-Gon,  _ Do not hurt him more than he already is.  _

She thinks he might hear her, in her rage, and it is not his fault he dies. She remembers Maul from when he was a child, and instead of moving with her he has grown used to getting her power through violence. Jedi dance with her, match her step for step, a gentle melody of give and take between them; it is an understanding that has been kept strong for a millennium. Sith can only take. They wish not to dance with her, they think she is something to be smothered and used, and they beat her until blood comes out. For Jedi she twirls, for Sith she evades; she can never find it in herself to hit them back. They have her mark as well as any other, and a teacher could never beat her students. 

Even if the Jedi pretend otherwise, she is made of more emotion than they could ever conceive, and Kenobi’s anger and sorrow and grief hit her more than anything else. Her son is safe, Anakin gets his flying from her, but the queen and the knight need much more help than she can give. His fighting then is a mix between grateful and feral, a dance and battle. She pirouettes as well as ducks, and when he cuts Maul in half he makes her bleed just a bit. She doesn't mind, because she can feel the glowing beat of Maul’s soul even as he falls, and she could nudge Kenobi in the right way and warn him; but she could never do that to one of her own. 

She knows Qui-Gon can see her when he dies, and instead of comfort he takes it for a warning. Train the boy he tells the man he has lived with for years, and she can sense Kenobi’s heart crack just a bit more. She places a hand on his shoulder, sees the two gold threads that lead to her son and the queen, and kisses him on the forehead. She does not know how, but he and her son will connect much more than as master and Padawan, and that makes him and Padme as family as they come.  _ Train my boy and I will protect you as well,  _ she says, but she is not sure if he hears her through his tears. 

She finds them beautiful at the ceremony, both the boys in their robes and Padme in her dress. She wishes Shmi could be here and see it, and she is so overjoyed that she barely notices Palpatine standing in front of her son. He has been the one to suffocate her the most, and she has claimed to never hate the Sith. It’s the way that he looks at Anakin that makes this hatred blaze in her. The way he smiles and she can sense the happiness. He knows what Anakin is, he knows Anakin is her son. 

“We will watch your career with great interest,” he says.

_ You stay away from my son. You stay away from these boys and that girl. Don’t you dare _ , she says. Palpatine does not hear her. He has been choking off her voice for so long, she doubts he would even know when she is whispering.

She does not see the silver thread connecting from his hand to Anakin’s neck. Maybe from denial or pure chance, but the blood it will draw from her family will be impossible to ignore one day.

*

Training was something she never thought she would experience with Anakin, and it is not an easy task. Never has a Jedi had her full attention before, and even if she wasn’t constantly by his side, Anakin is her son after all. He moves beautifully, he shoots up the ranks fast, is eager to switch from training sabers to the real thing. The other Padawans are jealous, and after hearing the rumors about how he is the chosen one, they avoid him like he may be cursed. When a little girl named Aayla walks right up to him and demands that he teach her how to throw a punch, he beams. He is full of energy, far too much for Obi-wan to really handle, and she will make sure to send her child to dreamless sleep when the older boy looks like he’s about to drop from exhaustion. 

Meditation is the worst for him. Usually the Jedi try to get close to her, connect with her, try to see whatever her form may be. He is already a part of her, and the power and noise and sensations that run through his head when he tries to get closer is enough to make him cry. She cannot tell Obi-wan to give it up; at one point Anakin’s nose starts bleeding, and she can feel the guilt coming off both of them. One sorry to have pushed the other so hard, the other feeling like he isn’t good enough. She wants to calm them both, reassure them. In all honesty, she wants to be a mother in the way Shmi is. 

Anakin is more human than she will ever understand, and he has human problems that only a mother could help him through. Questions about the world and universe he constantly pesters Obi-wan with whenever they train. He asks Aayla about Padme when they study together, and his cheeks flush whenever he says the queen’s name, and Aayla teases him as much as she answers. At night she can hear the questions he does not voice out loud- that he is confused because he thinks about Obi-wan the same way he thinks about Padme, and she wishes she could tell him. She may not be human but she is every emotion, she is life, and she is death. She wants to take him in her arms and cradle him and tell him not to be afraid. 

_ To love is in your nature, no matter who they are, never be ashamed of that. _

There are very few times in her very long life she has ever wished to be human. Only when her son is hurting, and she cannot really touch him, does she wonder if there is a higher power that would allow it. 

Over the years, her hunch from ages ago turns out to be correct. Obi-wan pretends to be calm and controlled, but he has just as much of a reckless attitude as Anakin. He simply hides it better, earns a reputation as the council’s golden knight. She watches over Padme as well as them, switching her attention from Corasant to Naboo within a moment, seeing her turn from queen to senator. She feels pride and adoration for Kenobi and Amidala, as if they are her children as well. 

When a decade has passed, those golden threads stretched taut between the Jedi and Padme start to go slack, and she is almost as excited as Anakin. All three of them together, she thinks, something must be happening. Something does. Just not something she would ever want. 

Of course she checks on Shmi. She could never look away from her for long, but she is all powerful, and even if she prefers the present the future cannot be avoided. She knows Shmi is in danger long before it happens, and it worries her. There is nothing she can do, because she is not human, and she hates what she has to do. 

She is not human. Anakin is. 

Together they can save her, so instead of making sure he sleeps when he needs it, she sends him nightmares. Visions of Shmi dying, being tortured, suffering. He wakes sweating and in tears, and shaking until his teeth chatter. She does not sooth, she does not calm him, she lets him stew in it.  _ Talk to Obi-wan _ , she whispers in the dead of night, his ragged breathing the only sound,  _ go to her. We can save her.  _

He speaks to Yoda. The old man says that it is nothing to worry about, and the anger simmers heavily off her. The plants in Yoda’s small room die, and she thinks he knows why, but he would never admit that the all powerful Force is in love with a woman. 

He speaks to Obi-wan. He says the same because that’s what he’s been taught to say, and if Yoda thinks that it is nothing, then it must be nothing. 

He speaks to Padme. She says to go, because what would it hurt, and oh if she could give this girl power she would. The desert sands are hot and familiar, and Shmi has married. Anakin is shocked, but she already knew, and as long as her love is happy and safe she does not care if she looks for connection with others. When Anakin leaves to find Shmi, kidnapped and afraid and bleeding, she is right beside him blazing like a newly made sword. They will save her, this woman they both love in different ways, and they will be together again. 

It is a horrible thing to see a loved one die. She has felt the death of planets, but this is Shmi. This is the kind girl in the slave market who is gentle despite the cruelties. This is the woman with the soft hair and the quiet smile. This is the woman she loves. This is the mother of her child. This is Shmi Skywalker. 

And she’s dead. 

She is angry. She has never been this furious, she has never wanted to let blood splatter the stars like this. Anakin holds the body of his mother and cries, and holds his lightsaber in his fist, and when he looks out into the camp his eyes blaze like an inferno. This is a time when mother and son both want death. Anything that gets in their path, they will destroy, because they deserve it. They deserve to feel the same pain that the two of them are suffering through. 

Love is in Anakin’s nature, but she was never made of pure light, and hate is in his nature too. 

Padme seems to understand, when it is over and Shmi is buried. Anakin swears he will never tell Obi-wan, and she knows why, but she feels as if it is a bad choice. She worries, not for the first time, that he has not realized the difference between love and attachment either. 

When he loses his hand she feels the pain like it is her own. She feels all their pain- Anakin’s loss, the bloody scratches along Padme’s back, the saber hit that lands far too close to Obi-wan’s bone for comfort. It hurts her, and she just wants them to be safe. Yoda protects them, and yet she still cannot forgive him. 

Anakin and Padme marry soon after, and she laments Shmi’s absence. She reaches toward the unknown, the realm beyond, and whispers to it.  _ She’s beautiful, love. She is kind and strong and will put him in his place if she needs too. They’ll be amazing.  _

He brokenly tells Obi-wan about his mother’s death, because he cannot hide his grief from him, and he is walking a tightrope between the murder of the villiage and his marriage. Then Obi-wan places his hands on his shoulders and says “I swear if I had known...I would have saved her for you,” in a voice broken with exhaustion and shame. For a moment she is angry, because Anakin told him, he  _ told him _ and he didn’t do anything. Then Anakin falls off the rope, and cries. 

She might be angry, but he needs him. For a moment, just a moment when the universe is quiet, she thinks they all might be okay. 

The next day, the Senate announces the war. 

*

She has been in millions of wars, and they all seem to turn out the same. All of them contain these things: sides and death and hope being whittled down day after day. Bags start to form under Padme’s eyes, her life as a senator thrown into disarray. She goes to more meetings than ever, looks over proposed votes until her eyes throb from screen light; all with the sole goal of trying to end the war before it really starts. Obi-wan’s position as a favorite in the council leads not only to a seat and the rank of Master, but unending missions that take him farther and farther from home. Some of his hair starts to turn gray, and he doesn’t sleep; he prefers to go over battle plans until the letters flash when he closes his eyes, because losing soldiers is his worst nightmare. Anakin is newly knighted, and he walks with a swagger in his step that is born from pride for his natural talent; he is still being worn, slowly but surely, and she is afraid of what will happen if this war spans years. 

She is unsure of how to feel about the clones. They were chosen not only because they are strong and can think tactically, but because they have little connection with her. She is as natural as she can possibly be, yet the men surrounding her have been forced to grow up and fight far too fast, and that aura makes the air rotten to her. By staying with Anakin and Obi-wan, because they are always sent out together, the minds of the clones wrap around her tentatively; subconsciously they are scared of the power they do not know. They are friends as well as soldiers, but every loss hurts her son, and she can’t do anything to stop it. Their deaths, if his loved ones don’t die first, is what will break him. 

In the middle of battle, a little Torgurta girl walks out and says she’s here as Anakin’s Padawan, and she is very interested indeed. Not because it appears Yoda has lied, she has no time to worry about Yoda these days, but because of the gold thread between her son and this girl. The strongest one she has ever seen. Her name is Ahsoka Tano, and she has the same arrogance that Anakin does, if not as well earned. 

They work well together, the two of them, though having a Padawan leads to much more work than Anakin would have expected. Ahsoka is little more than a child after all, and he is barely an adult. Him and Obi-wan pivot between each other, passing Ahsoka from one to the other depending on who thinks they can parent her better in the moment; they even turn to Padme, and she is as clumsy as them, if more graceful about it. 

Still the war rages on, and the soldiers do not even realize they are a snake eating its own tail. The Jedi have council meetings nearly everyday, taking in the warnings she constantly sends to them about their precious chancellor, and say a Sith lord must be hiding in the city somewhere. She does everything she can to point him out, because he still will not stay away from her child. Even after she sends a beast to devour him whole, they think it is his lackey that never leaves his side. She is so torn up in this, in trying to keep this man as far away from her family as she can, that she does not notice Jedi losing their faith. Some fall. Some die. Some Sith come back into her fold, not as Jedi, but as people just trying to live as happily as they can. 

Ahsoka leaves the order, first involuntarily and then as her own choice, and she can see her son start to fray. As the war has gone on, he has only gained fear. Fear not of dying, but of those around him passing. Padme, Obi-wan, Ahsoka, his squadron: he imagines them all suffering in a way he could have prevented if he had only been faster, having to live in a world without them. Whenever Obi-wan and Ahsoka are in battle his anxiety practically becomes a cloud, but they are with him in the fight at least, and so he works himself to the bone to better protect them. 

Ahsoka Tano leaves, and Anakin will no longer be able to protect her, and that worry is shattering him from the inside out. Still, she holds onto the girl and all her doubts about herself, and tells her that she will be okay.  _ You do not need to be a Jedi for me to help you _ , she whispers.  _ I’m still with you.  _ She is never sure if Ahsoka hears her. 

It’s years before her family is back together, with the wars coming to an end, just the way that Palpatine wants it. The silver lining, she thinks, are the two of  _ them _ . She knows before Padme and Anakin do, sees the two shining lights, and smiles to herself. Twins, and powerful as well, and she is already imagining how they will be loved. 

Then Anakin kills Dooku while he is unarmed, no matter that she desperately pleads with him to stop, and she can feel her own son smother her for just a moment. 

It is enough. 

*

She convinces herself that her son will be okay as long as they all stay together. As long as him and Obi-wan and Padme and Ahsoka all stay together, they will take care of each other. The war will stop and they will be able to rest. The children will be born, and then they will have two more little bodies to take care of. They just have to stay together.

Ahsoka leaves to deal with Maul, the one she could not let Obi-wan fully kill, and she worries. Surely, she tells herself, the girl will come back. There are unspoken words between her and Anakin, and even with the separation, that thread between them is as strong as ever. Then the council tells Obi-wan to leave, all while setting up Anakin to have Palpatine whisper poison into his ear, no matter how much she begs them not to. The dark has grown so thick it is clouding her, turning her into nothing but ghost. 

She has been protecting Anakin all his life, but she is weak after all these years, and the nightmares slip through the cracks like bugs. Horrible things that show Padme dying with the sound of children crying, manifestations of a twisted imagination playing off of Anakin’s fear of dying last. He is scarred from the incident with his mother, something from her own hand, and she regrets it because she knows she has placed one of the nails in her own son’s coffin. Palpatine keeps getting closer and closer, and Anakin stops sleeping and eating, until he is so delirious from fear he starts to ponder if immortality is possible. 

_ No, don’t,  _ she whispers, because whispering is all she can do.  _ You’ll only be disappointed with what you find.  _ He can not listen to her, because Palpatine has taken hope and twisted it into something sick.

_ You stay away from my boy. Find someone else, There is no chosen one! He is just my son, you can’t use him in your games, you can’t do this you can’t do this you can’t do this you can’t do this _ -

Palpatine has always been good at blocking her out. She can barely whisper now. 

*

When Order 66 happens, she is everywhere at once. She moves on a swivel, watching, and it is the most horrid thing she has ever seen. She hears every scream: every Jedi suddenly gunned down by their most trusted, every clone as the love they have for their generals is snuffed out like a candle. The death of a single Jedi is like a needle sticking her. This monstrosity is thousands of needles stabbing themselves deep into her flesh, and the universe is about to know what cosmic tears and blood taste like. 

She sees so much, and she cannot help. 

She sees Obi-wan get gunned down and fall into water, pulling himself up spitting and gasping. He does not injure his own men as he sneaks away, even if they would not hesitate to put a bolt through his heart. He is as confused as when he saw that red blade go through Qui-Gon’s chest and realized that man was going to die. 

She sees Aayla trek through a forest before her commander shoots her through the back. This is the same commander she shares kisses with when the two of them are alone, the same commander she has promised to make hers when this war ends. He orders his brothers and dearest friends to fill her body with blaster fire, and his grip on sanity slips with every shot. 

She sees Cal struggle into an escape pod, sobbing until he can barely breathe. He cradles his master’s lightsaber against his chest, like it will bring the old man back, and she knows those tear tracks will take ages to wash away. 

She sees Depa save the boy she considers her son, though she would never tell Mace that, and watches as Caleb runs faster than he ever has before. He will never feel safe again, for as long as he lives, and it is only when his throat tastes like copper and his legs almost give out that he stops running. He will never be safe again, and he will never be able to stop running. 

She sees Ahsoka get attacked by one of her dearest friends, sees her realize what exactly is going on, sees her realize that these men all around her are going to kill her or die trying. Ahsoka frees one of them, and it lets her run, but it does not stop the death that follows. It does not stop her from having to dig a mass grave until blisters form and pop. 

She sees Anakin, because that is what she will call him even as he thinks of himself as Vader, march into the temple and slaughter friends and colleagues. By the time he gets to the children’s room she is so drained, she has already thought she had seen the most terrible thing in the world, but this is so much worse. Her son is so clouded, he can barely hear her now, but by all her power she can not allow this. 

_ You can’t do this. You aren’t this. You can’t kill children! _

For the first time in years, her son looks her in the eyes. “I have before,” he says, and she remembers that village in the desert. She remembers when she wanted to paint the universe in blood, how her and her son managed to drench yellow sand red. Now, she is ashamed of it, but she never stopped to consider if he was. 

_ That...it was different. It was for Shmi, and it was a mistake. I can see that now. _

“It wasn’t, and this is not any different at all. This is for Padme.” 

She has always been able to move with her son, dance. Now, he’s just like Palpatine. Now, he smothers her. 

*

  
  


She does not shatter when Order 66 happens. She can feel herself shutter like a light about to go out, but she holds herself together. 

She does not shatter when Anakin and Obi-wan fight, though Obi-wan nearly does. She makes sure Padme will be alright, the poor girl drained from carrying two children in her. All she can do is watch the two men fight and argue, and she looks away when Anakin leaps. She is already battered, already bleeding, and his loss of limbs barely even registers. 

Her son is screaming and Obi-wan is crying, the tears hidden in the red tinted light, when he says something that breaks Anakin more than anything else. 

“I loved you,” he says, and his voice cracks, and she doesn’t know what’s worse- the fact that Anakin believes him, or that she knows he is lying. It is a last ditch attempt, a plea, telling him that he will love him only if he no longer acts like this strange monster. She knows the truth, as horrid as it is, that Obi-wan can not help loving him no matter what he’s done. Anakin can only lash out.

“I hate you!” he screams, and Obi-wan leaves him. She should be angry, because her son is dying and no one is doing anything to save him. Now, though, she feels lighter than she ever has. She cradles his head as he dies. “Mother?” he whispers through cracked and bloodied lips.

_ It’s alright _ , she whispers to him.  _ You’ll be with me soon. I know you didn’t mean all that.  _ It is a reassurance, even if she may not completely believe it. He closes his eyes, and she waits for him to pass, and be at peace for the first time in days.

Then Palpatine comes and takes away her baby, and she screams until the building on Mustafar cracks and falls into the lava. 

He doesn’t hear her. No one ever does.

*

She does not shatter when the Jedi die. 

She does not shatter when they fight on Mustafar. 

She shatters when they put her boy in that suit. 

It is not a resurrection, it is an amputation. Encased in metal and black plastic, Anakin’s shine disappears like a mirror getting covered in dirt. Already, she is forgetting what his face looked like, what his energy felt like, what his smile shone like. Palpatine pretends the suit is meant to make him stronger, a warrior that will control the galaxy. 

The legs are too tall and stiff, the chest plate too snug, his breathing is too difficult. It is a cage as much as a crutch, meant to remind him that he is nothing anymore. He is a pet, and all it would take to end him is the flick of a button on a chest plate. Anakin will have to learn to walk like he is a child again, learn to move normally again. He is told he killed his wife, which is a blatant lie, but he will never be able to hear his mother again. She will never be able to tell him that Padme always believed, until the last second, that he would be him again. 

He screams, because that’s all he is allowed anymore.

All she can do is look at that emotionless helmet and whisper  _ I know, my dear, I know.  _


	2. The Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She has lost her son. She will not lose her grandchildren.

Despite her pleading, despite how Obi-wan knows Padme would hate it, they split the twins up and send them to separate homes. 

Leia takes the last name Organa, a princess even if she is not related to the queen by blood. She has her mother’s hair and her grandmother’s warm eyes, but her father’s quick temper. Leia learns about her mother from an outsider's perspective, only knowing of her as a senator that died in the Jedi purge, a woman she looks up to as an inspiration rather than a blood relation. Of Anakin she learns almost nothing, because Anakin Skywalker is dead to the world, another casualty during that fateful night. Of Vader she knows plenty; she sees him at senatorial events she goes to with her adoptive father, and unlike everyone else she is unafraid of that mask and heavy breathing. Her new family takes her into the fold of the rebellion, and Leia is as unbreakable as her mother, so of course she agrees. She hears stories of Obi-wan and how he was a great general; she sees the white marks on the face of a woman she only knows as Fulcrum, and she is never sure if the woman’s markings or the sigil of Fulcrum came first. 

Leia is a politician more than a soldier. Her granddaughter’s power comes through in the reading of emotion, keeping herself centered. Leia may have a face like granite, but her opponents are an open book. Except for Vader, who she never gets close enough to read, who never gets close enough to realize how much she looks just like Padme. 

Luke has the same name as his father and human grandmother, the one that makes her want to wrap her family up and take them away from the universe. He looks just like his father, if a little smoother around the edges, with that bleached blond hair and eyes the same color as the sky. He lives on the same sand she used to help Anakin leap over, except he is more free than ever, a boy just growing up in a small town. Luke knows nothing of the Empire, except that it exists, and he might one day be lucky enough to get into their flight academies. It hurts her to hear this, that he wants to join the people that split up his family, but he is just like his father. He wants to escape Tatooine, taste the cosmos on his tongue, and she would be lying if she didn’t find the idea of taking her grandson into space alluring. 

She is not the only one watching Luke grow up. 

Obi-wan stays in the desert, abandons his name, and seems to age decades in just a few years. The nightmares come every night, of Padme covered in her own blood, of Anakin burning. She tries to sooth them, but she is so weak now, so weak that she can do practically nothing. She watches as every day or so Obi-wan contemplates digging his lightsaber out from where he has stashed it, contemplates pressing it against his chest and tapping the release button. Then he will see Luke, who looks so much like Anakin before the war robbed him of the ability to be carefree, and Obi-wan will say to himself “Not this time, but perhaps, tomorrow.” 

Her grandchildren look up at the stars and feel like they are missing something, and she pledges to herself that she will bring them back together, no matter what it takes. 

*

As soon as she sees the droids in the desert, she knows something has gone wrong. Anakin was always fond of the little astromech, and there is the golden droid he built as a child. It is incredibly polite, almost too much, but that’s what happens when a nine year old is told to make sure his android is nice to his mother. 

She is concerned, because Leia has finally pushed the Emperor too far, and these droids are supposed to be with her and not her twin. She is nervous, because they might be the same age, but Leia is much more prepared to fight than her brother is. When Obi-wan finally sees him, talks to him, the worry almost goes away. Luke holds Anakin’s lightsaber and she feels herself light up inside, even if he holds it hesitantly, even if his eyes are wide with disbelief. 

She understands why Obi-wan lies about Anakin, even if she tells it hurts. He paints a picture of Luke’s father that is acceptable to love, and says Vader murdered him. She knows he would prefer if Anakin were dead, and he thought that for years before he saw footage of Vader in a bar. That was the closest he ever came to death, because how could you live with knowing something like that? 

As soon as Luke sees Leia he feels like she is a missing piece. That part that he has been looking up at the sky hoping to find. She feels like a clock has started ticking now that Luke has seen his sister's face, held his father’s weapon. She is not sure what is coming, but she knows it will be big. 

*

She doesn’t blame Han Solo for scoffing at her name. Ever since the Jedi had died, their lightsaber’s burned and names smeared with mud, she has been nothing but a legend. The rebellion uses it, because they whisper of Jedi’s secretly fighting against the Empire, and the words make her feel lighter every time they cross someone’s lips.

She is worried that he may not give them passage; superstitious people have gotten afraid of those that speak her name with the rise of the Empire, but he wants to earn money more than he wants to avoid trouble. 

Luke is heading for Leia. Maybe, for once, what’s left of her tattered family can come back together. 

*

Alderaan falls, and Leia’s heart breaks. She already despised Vader, known as the Emperor’s lapdog, and now she hates him with such passion it would take her father’s breath away. 

Alderaan falls, and she feels all those needles pricking her skin again. She takes those souls carefully, folds them away into peace, sends a message to the Organas:  _ Thank you for taking care of her.  _

Alderaan falls, and she knows Luke and Obi-wan feel it. Luke feels a pressure behind his eyes, a headache that makes him wince and ask if he can lay down. Leia's grief crosses over into him, even if he doesn’t know. Obi-wan’s eyes flicker with familiarity and worry; he does not want to believe, but he knows it’s true.

Time is ticking down. 

*

The Death Star is one of the most horrid contraptions she has ever seen, and she has been around for the invention of all weapons previous. Rocks that used to be forests and streams and mountains and cities fly through space, and she can just distantly hear the screams. Luke is too untrained to hear, but Obi-wan shakes his head to try to block them out, and she doesn’t think she has ever seen him so tired. 

Seeing Luke and Han and all those soldiers in the same uniforms as the clones, stripped of all personality and paint jobs that legions were known for makes her ache. Obi-wan sneaking away makes her anxious, but he is a trained warrior, so she focuses on the children. 

She realizes exactly what Obi-wan Kenobi is doing just a moment too late. 

A battle for the ages, is what historians will recount of this moment, as master and apprentice duel. That is all Luke and the soldiers know- that this is a teacher and a student. They do not know of the late nights spent in grief, one for a mother and one for a teacher. They do not know of the training sessions that more often ended in laughter than anything else. They do not know of the little Torgurta girl that had two fathers and a mother. They do not know of words exchanged on Mustafar. They do not know of the nightmares. 

This is not a battle of the ages. This is a battle of the heart. 

She knows that it is a battle that Obi-wan does not intend to win. He thinks loss makes people stronger, because he has lived his whole life with it as his companion, and he is still standing. Obi-wan has watched people die all around him; his master, his past lover, his friends, his enemies, the man and woman he grew to love. There has to be a reason, is what he tells himself, and so it must be to make him stronger. She wants to tell him that that was never the reason, that death and loss hurt more than they reforge. 

But he has been ready to die for a very long time. 

When he dies, Luke screams, and she feels it. A burst of power, because she and the gifts she gives have always been linked to emotion, and she knows Vader feels it just as much as she. She can feel him wondering, because he was always told that the child died with Padme, but maybe just  _ maybe _ -

When Han tells Luke to shoot the door controls, she makes sure he hits it on the first try. 

*

Jedi have a habit of sticking around after death. It’s just their nature, she thinks, because they spent all their lives worrying about the state of the universe; they may as well do it after. She can feel Obi-wan’s spirit hovering around Luke and Leia just like she is, but she keeps herself hidden. There will be time for a reunion, when the twins are safe, when this is over. When she can forgive herself for letting him do what he did. 

The rebel movement is well formulated even if they are a bit scrappy. Luke blazes like a sun in his anger, Leia a dangerous calm like the sea, No one knows the two are twins, but people scamper out of the new pilot’s way just as they do the princess’s. 

Han shakes off Luke’s request to say, ignores the way his heart stutters a little when he sees Leia commanding men like she was born to do, no matter how his friend teases him. 

“May the force be with you,” he tells Luke, and she smiles to herself. Oh, he’ll be back. 

She’s right, in the end, when that old ship comes in. Luke has one chance to shoot, and she almost whispers to him when she realizes Obi-wan has beaten her to it. He’s not worried about the universe, she realizes, just Luke. Maybe, he’s sorry; sorry as he can be. 

The shot lands, the station erupts, the rebels cheer and carry Luke on their shoulders, and him and Leia both tackle Han with gleeful shouts of “You came back!”

She’s not surprised he made it. Luke gets his flying skill from her, after all. 

*

Vader wants to know all about the man that shot the Death Star out of the sky. Imagine his surprise when he learns it is a boy, just barely twenty. It is Boba Fett, a man whose voice reminds him of a time when he could breathe without help, that tells him the name of the boy in the X-wing. 

“Luke Skywalker,” he says. Vader knows before even the Emperor. The window in front of him cracks until he is surrounded by a halo of destruction. She can feel his anger like a smog, choking her out until only rage remains. But under it… 

...There is just the smallest, barely there flicker of hope. She knows it then. 

The clock has stopped ticking down.

*

Hoth is a cold place that Luke hates almost as soon as he sets foot on it. He is used to sand, not snow, and compared to the rest of the rebels he wears enough layers to make her chuckle just a bit. Leia is as commanding in an ice cave as she is in a high tech base, and seeing her breath cloud out of her mouth like smoke makes her look all the more like a warrior queen. Han stays out of the snow as much as he can, always saying his ship needs repairs, and then he’ll leave; Luke always rolls his eyes, Leia says it’s about time, neither of them really want him to go. Chewbacca looks at these rebels with their coats and chattering teeth, and laughs when Han and Leia and Luke lean into him to get warmth like he is a furnace. 

They stay, and she worries for them with every imperial ship that gets even a little close, but they are far away from Vader, and that is all that matters.

Technology may be foreign to her, but she has tuned herself into Hoth, so she knows when the droids crash into ice and snow. Luke is curious, he got that from his father, and he goes after it no matter how desperately she whispers to him. He’s gotten better at traversing Hoth, but he is still a desert boy at heart, and he will freeze to death without transport. 

Some of the rebels have her mark on their soul, Leia shines the brightest of all of them, but it is a surprise when Han acts. She is not sure if he heard her, somewhere deep in his subconscious, or if her prodding has nothing to do with it; he’s just that worried about the twins all the time. Still, he saves her grandson, even as Luke rambles about Obi-wan and Dagobah. She knows the planets, she kept a wary eye on every Jedi that managed to survive the massacre, and the fact that Luke has been sent in the direction of Yoda is not lost to her. It is certainly a choice on Kenobi’s part, not one she can say she’s happy about, and she wonders if Obi-wan would push him towards Ahsoka if he knew about her. 

He still hasn’t told Luke that him and Leia are twins, and it makes her steam, because they deserve to know what they are to each other. The confusion comes off the two of them in waves, trying to understand why they feel so connected even though they never met before the Death Star. Nevermind the fact that both are confused about Han; the blatant flirting with Leia, Luke running every touch and glance over in his head. They’re a family when all is said and done, and she hopes they will come together on their own even if they aren’t told. 

They kiss. Chewie laughs. She wishes she had a head to bang against a wall. 

_ Damn you Kenobi,  _ she thinks.  _ You should have just told them.  _

*

Vader comes to Hoth, and she has never wanted to see her son less. Rebels are dying, white turns to red, and Luke nearly falls in his haste to get into his X-Wing. Han and Leia are running around the base like rats caught in a trap, and Solo’s plan to leave is destroyed by his need to get Leia to safety. The Falcon escapes at least, with Vader raging after them, Luke on his way to the swamp. She tries to reach her son through the fog he has had around him since he was put in the suit, she is batted away like some kind of fly, and she wraps her power around the children instead. 

She has lost her son. She will not lose her grandchildren.

*

Luke and Yoda are very different, and even if she dislikes the old master, she is sad to see that his mind has degraded in the years. Obi-wan was depressed, but Yoda has broken in a different way, caught between the past and present like a spinning top. He looks at Luke and sees Anakin, so he calls him Young Skywalker instead, because he will not risk calling him the wrong name. His robes are tattered and dirty, he is nearly bald, wrinkled; he has always been old, but even so she still feels sorry. 

Luke worries that he’s about to collapse any minute, and she can sense indeed that Yoda is close to death. A natural one, at least, but good enough to train him. He refuses at first, says that Luke is too old to learn all the reflexes he needs. She knows it is because Luke is too young to have blind obedience, too young to not question the idea of attachment versus love.  _ You’ll do it _ , she whispers, and Yoda has studied her for so long that she knows he hears, even if he ignores her like an angry toddler.  _ Train my grandson better than you did my son.  _

It is the first time she has referenced her family to someone who is listening attentively, and it changes Yoda’s mind like that. She would like to say she is thankful, but it is closer to relief. 

*

She knows something is wrong in Cloud City even before the Falcon touches down. Lando has the same aura as Han does- a rascal through and through, with not a touch of her power in him. He is kind enough, makes Leia blush and Han a tad jealous, but as soon as they are shown their rooms, she knows. Even with that smog, she recognizes him. 

Vader is here. 

*

Ever since that mess with Shmi, she is afraid of sending dreams. Luke is already deathly afraid of becoming Vader, and he doesn't even know that Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader are one in the same. She is hesitant to even send the dream, show him Leia and Han and Chewie in danger. 

She has too, because it’s Leia. That’s her granddaughter. 

Yoda tries to stop him, because that man has never been able to tell the difference between attachment and love, and she blindly thinks that maybe Luke will finally learn who his family is. He doesn’t, he leaves, and before she follows her family she looks at the old man. He looks sad and small. She gives as little comfort as she can. 

_ He’ll be back. Wait for him. Please.  _

“For as long as I can, I will.” 

It’s as good as she’ll get. 

*

Carbonite freezing is something she has never been a fan of, even in the temporary sense. What Vader does to Han is something that is much more than temporary. Leia admits she loves Han, and Han says something cocky that Anakin would have said when he was nineteen and thought he was indestructible. If anything, Leia certainly got her taste in partners from her mother. 

Lando changes his mind, Luke battles his father. 

She had hoped that when he learned about who his father was, it would be gentle. Him and Leia would be together, know that they were twins, with someone sitting them down. Let them slowly adjust to the idea. Vader is anything but gentle. 

He lost his hand, just like his father; he falls, not knowing if he will survive because in the moment he thinks death is better than living with the knowledge of what his father has become. 

Luke stands with his sister, metal fused to his skin, and she tries as hard as she can to wrap them up in her warmth. 

_ I am sorry my darlings, I am so very sorry.  _

From the small spark of happiness, she imagines they can hear her. 

*

Months pass, and they plan on how to get their friend back. Luke tells Leia and Lando about the rumors and stories his aunt and uncle always warned him about. Chewbacca confirms how many of the stories are true. Luke throws himself into training; locking himself into his room to meditate, connecting pieces of metal around a kyber crystal until it doesn’t spark in his hands, trying to levitate everything in the room that he can. 

She feels renewed, because no one this powerful has called out to her in years, and she knows Luke can feel her presence around him now. Those that passed all those years ago felt him too, but they couldn’t seem to leave well enough alone. 

_ “A Skywalker is the last hope for the Jedi? Of course.” _

_ “Don’t be too hard on him now, we just have to teach him.” _

_ “And make sure he can actually follow directions.” _

_ “Unlike his father.” _

_ “He better not be like his father.” _

_ “I wouldn’t be surprised.” _

_ This is a child,  _ she wants to say,  _ You can’t put all this weight on him _ . Of course, the Jedi have always been intense about their teachings, and she can see it taking a toll on Luke. Leia doesn’t sleep because she has nightmares that Han is already dead, and she never even got to kiss him properly; Luke doesn’t sleep because the voices of ghosts echo around his room. Both get shadows under their eyes, and Leia has always been made of sterner stuff, but she can see Luke’s spark from a few years ago slowly guttering out. 

She remembers how awed he was to be holding his father’s saber in Obi-wan’s small home, and how now the memory of even clutching the hilt causes his mechanical hand to spasm- he rubs at the place where metal connects to flesh until his eyes go unfocused and he isn’t really in the room anymore. 

Leia practices her shooting and she never misses with a blaster. Luke’s ghosts show him every form of combat, until at the end of running through drills he is sweating and shaking. Leia straps on armor and has thermal bombs attached to her belt. Luke wears black, puts leather over his fake hand because seeing the cold fake flesh makes him cringe away. It is the same hand Anakin lost when he was a few years younger than Luke, though Luke’s glove isn’t as decorated. 

War has plagued her family for so long, she isn’t sure if it will ever leave them alone. 

*

Leia has always used the power she has like a politician instead of a warrior. All her life, people have assumed she is the charming diplomat's daughter, but even diplomats have their limits. Jabba debases her, dresses her up like a toy, puts a collar and chain around her neck, and she kills him for it. Leia uses that power she has always had, and wraps that chain around Jabba’s neck, and crushes his windpipe like it is nothing. 

Luke is the Jedi warrior from legend, a savior in black with a glowing blade on desert sands. 

Han is the man that bested Boba Fett blind, that pushed him into the dreaded Sarlacc Pit.

Leia is a Hutt Slayer, a title feared more then men with lightsabers and men that kill bounty hunters, the title of someone that topples criminal empires. She is so proud. 

Even if Leia hates him with a passion unmatched, Vader would be proud as well. 

*

When Yoda and Obi-wan ask Luke to kill his father, she knows he’ll never be able to do it. No matter that these two masters talk about it like it is written in the stars, as if the minute Luke was born he has been living only to kill Anakin Skywalker. Even when he says no, they simply say Leia will do it instead. Of course, they don’t say her name, but Luke had always been smarter than he looks. 

She can tell he’s happy- because finally now he understands that click with her, that connection. He’s also a bit disgusted, because he’s remembering that kiss; fearful, because he knows the hatred Leia has for Vader, and she just strangled Jabba the Hutt. 

He’s too much like his mother, an optimist, so he lies. He tells them he will face Vader just like they want him too. He tells them he will end this war. 

He does not tell them he’s prepared to die instead of kill. 

*

Endor is a beautiful planet, one that thrums with life and makes her feel fresh and clean and untainted. Yes, the Empire is at the doorstep, is using this planet for something awful, but she likes to think she is more powerful than that. She isn’t powerful enough to stop the Empire herself, to warn Leia and Han of the trap set against them, to warn Luke against handing himself directly into the arms of the Emperor. 

Palpatine looks worse than he ever has, because fighting her has a consequence. His skin hangs in pale folds, his eyes a sickly yellow with burst red veins. Luke keeps himself as calm as he can, but he is a man that has lost much in a short amount of time, and his friends are really the only family he has left, so she is not surprised when he tries to cut Palpatine’s head off. 

She’s not surprised when Vader jumps to his defense, though she is a little disappointed. She can pinpoint the moment Luke actually balances on the edge of an abyss, when Vader mentions turning Leia; a woman whose planet he has already destroyed, a woman who he has tortured, and he can’t accept even the possibility of that happening. Luke beats his own father, and it’s easier than any of the rebels told him to expect, because they are not Jedi and they don’t know how the suit hinders more than helps. 

This is what it comes down to. 

So many people in the universe believe in so many things. Her true name is the Force, but generations of beings have called her Fate, Destiny, and even God. Perhaps it grants them peace of mind to think that she controls everything, pulls every string, that her voice is as clear as a bell. Even if they think this, she can not correct them. She can whisper, she can try to guide, she can offer comfort to those that suffer far too much. 

She cannot make choices for them. There is light and darkness in every being; she cannot tip the scales one way or the other. No matter how much she wants to. 

“You’ve failed.” She smiles. “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.” Luke has made his choice. 

Palpatine makes his choice, and it’s a choice that he has made many times before. Lightening is a terrible way to die; the suffering before perishing is more akin to days of torture. Luke’s screaming makes her cringe, makes her want to tear Palpatne’s head off, makes her want to rip off the mark of her that has always been on his soul.  _ You leave my grandson alone, she _ wants to yell, but of course he doesn’t hear. He never has, and now Luke will die and they will set Leia down the same path and Leia may even have the same fate. Except-

“ _ Mother?” _ It is a faint voice that echoes and is so misused she can feel the pain that comes with it. 

_ Anakin? _ It is the first time she has really said his name since the suit went on, since he convinced himself he killed his wife and child. 

_ “What do I do?”  _ She is not Fate or Destiny. She cannot make choices for anyone. Not even her son. So, she does the only thing she can do: try to guide. 

_ Remember.  _

It is just one word, but it is enough. There is so much that Anakin threw away, that Palpatine tried to poison every minute he was around him. The way Padme smiled even if she was tired after hours in the Senate, how they tried to make time for each other even with their mess of schedules. The way Obi-wan and him would bicker back and forth, resisting from laughter the whole time, the tally they always had going on who saved who. The way Ahsoka, darling Ahsoka, would look so excited after getting a move he’d taught her right. 

The sight of Padme’s face as he crushed her windpipe. 

The look of utter despair in the depths of Obi-wan’s eyes before he struck him down. 

The sound of Ahsoka telling him she would never leave him again, even as he tried to kill her. 

And there is his son, dying in front of his eyes, one out of two. Padme, with twins; his son and his daughter that he had always been told had been stillborn because of him. 

He makes his choice. 

She can tell that he knows it is going to kill him; the suit was designed so that Palpatine had the ultimate kill switch at his literal fingertips. Anakin has been in pain for so long that he barely notices he is dying until he collapses to the ground, until Luke drags himself over to his father and the two of them lay side by side until Luke can stand again. 

*

Her son is going to die, but her grandson is the most worried over it. The training has worked well, Luke is strong enough to shoulder Anakin as they try to make it to a ship, even with all the metal and plastic acting as dead weight. 

They get to the ramp, and Luke’s heart is beating like a drum, when Anakin drops. “Help me take this mask off,” he wheezes, and Luke knows enough by now to be wary, to argue. She is between them both now, more powerful than she has been in an age, and she is tired. “Just once, let me see you with my own eyes.” 

She’s forgotten his face after all these years, but she knows it didn’t always look like this. With skin so white from never seeing the sun, nothing like the glow he had as a child; hair gone and his scalp covered in scars. Despite it all his eyes are that same brilliant blue as when he first opened them. He begs Luke to let Leia know about him, even if deep down he seems to know that she may never actually forgive him. Luke is in tears, moving into the ship, when-

“Do you think they’ll ever forgive me?” he whispers. He is looking at her. She does not know if he means Leia, Luke, the rebels; maybe Padme, Obi-wan, Ahsoka; perhaps even the Jedi that died in the purge or the children he killed. It may not even matter. 

_ Not right now, _ she says, giving her son warmth and love,  _ but this...this is a good start. _

Anakin Skywalker closes his eyes, and dies. 

*

The universe celebrates more than it ever has. The Empire is finally gone, the Emperor himself killed in a fiery blaze of destruction. People chase stormtroopers out of their towns and cities, rip down tapestries and tax notices. They tear down statues and shoot at soldiers; rebels come out of hiding, fireworks go off. 

On Endor a body is burned, a couple kisses, and a brother and sister feel tension lifted off their shoulders. Fires blaze and music plays, and people dance while looking up at a sky that isn’t wearing chains anymore. 

A man has come back to himself at last, sees old friends, and there is happiness there even if all of them are tinted blue. 

She watches her family finally be happy and free and  _ alive _ and she thinks  _ this is it _ . 

_ We’re going to be okay. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell I'm a Luke Skywalker stan?? Anyway.


	3. Legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’re doing the best they can, of course, but she worries. She’s always worrying now, it seems.

Epilogues are hard; to write and to live.

Leia Organa and other senators have a New Republic to build- one that will not fall to corruption and desperation again. She isn’t Supreme Chancellor, no matter how many people outside of the political sphere want the rebel princess to rule them with a democratic hand. Leia is thankful for it, because her days are full of work and her nights are full of emotional messes. She is the poster of the Rebel Alliance, what the Empire cost everyone; her name will never be separate from the word “Alderaan” again. When she takes a pregnancy test, and it’s positive, she is not sure whether to cry in joy or scream. 

Han Solo, a man that has flown under the radar of public knowledge for centuries, suddenly becomes a household name. He is a war hero, even if he is a scoundrel, at least before reestablished tabloids crack open his smuggling career like an egg. His and Leia’s wedding is as private as they can make it, and holos run their images for a month after. When Leia tells him he is going to be a father, he hugs her and then drinks whiskey once she goes to sleep.

Luke Skywalker becomes more legend than man, the last of the Jedi to roam the universe, a man with magic looking for anyone that can move things with their mind. Everyone knows about the black cloak, the gloved hand, and green saber. None of them know about the arching scars that cover nearly the entirety of his chest and back- the only thing left of Palpatine on this earth, of the visits he gets from people long dead. Of the fact that he still struggles with the idea of attachment versus love. 

They’re doing the best they can, of course, but she worries. She’s always worrying now, it seems. 

*

Luke is in the middle of rebuilding the Order, when he meets someone. Or, rather, two someones. 

The first is Mara Jade, a woman that gleams from her gift like a diamond. An assassin specifically assigned to kill any and all Skywalkers, who abandoned the Empire as soon as it fell, who wandered the galaxy trying to figure out what to do. Luke finds her on a backwater planet, with mud smeared on her arms and twigs tangled in her fiery hair, the lightsaber she ignites glowing an iridescent violet. She’s rough around the edges and course with her language, and the first time she meets Han she drinks him under the table. She refuses to be a part of his order, because she has a problem with authority, and they keep meeting each other by accident. At least, that’s what they both tell themselves. Unsurprisingly, they get engaged as they may be about to die; and Han and Leia aren’t the only ones whose wedding holos start getting cycled through the news. 

The second is Din Djarin, a Mandalorian that has about as much force power as a rock. No offense to him, of course, but he only runs into Luke because he has a knack for finding force sensitive children. First there is the little creature that reminds her of Yoda, a child with large brown eyes that track her movements. Children have always been able to sense her easier, and she recognizes him from Anakin’s temple days. Din comes back to visit his son, because that is how Grogu refers to himself, often. It takes a year before he shows Mara and Luke the saber he has accidently won, a blade of darkness that marks him as king, and agrees to let them teach him how to use it. It takes another two before he shows them his face. 

Ten years after Leia and Han’s first son, Ben, is born, Din comes back from a trip carrying a baby in his arms. Leia is pregnant with another child, she claims it’s a set of twins, and she says it with such clarity and understanding that everyone knows she’s right even without medical tests. The girl Din carries is so small and wrinkled, her eyes barely open. She shines almost as bright as Luke, the mark on her soul is strong. She was on Jakku, for sale, Din explains; he does not have to explain that he couldn’t just walk away. 

“What is it with force sensitives and desert planets?” Mara asks, her hands drifting through Luke’s hair, though her eyes have not left the baby's face.

“She’s strong,” Luke says, holding out a hand, and even though her eyes are closed she reaches out and grasps one of his metal fingers. 

“Will you take her?” Din asks. He’s always been hesitant. He’s happy about Grogu being trained, but he has a lot more love than he says he does. She can already feel the protectiveness toward this baby radiating off him, it’s so strong that even Luke and Mara exchange a glance. 

“She’s too young to train,” Luke says, “but we can take care of her.”

“All three of us,” Mara adds, because out of the three she’s the most direct. 

“Three?” 

“Well,” Luke laughs, “You have to name her first.” No name was given, to the vendor, or to Din; but now she hopes this girl will be properly taken care of. This is her great-granddaughter after all. 

“Rey,” he says after a moment, “Like the sun.” Mara smiles. “Yes, because I found her in a desert.” The girl, Rey, opens her eyes to look at blue eyes and red hair and a silver helmet. Luke nods.

“I think she likes it.”

*

Rey only has a first name for the first two years of her life, because none of them can decide on what to call her. She is three years old when Din brings up the fact that Mandalorian culture isn’t one for big weddings; they don’t have a ceremony with cameras like the Senate would appreciate, but quietly between the three of them while Grogu and Rey sleep in the next room with Rey’s birthday cake frosting smeared across their mouths. Her name, legally, is the mouthful “Rey Jade-Djarin-Skywalker.” The media refers to her as Skywalker, because it’s the most recognizable and easier to say. 

The day after her  _ buir,  _ father, and mother are married, a gold thread appears around her pinky. No one else sees it except her great-grandmother, of course, and she has only seen them linked between Anakin and his three dearest. She stares at the child, with a mop of unruly brown hair and bright eyes, and looks at that gold thread.

It has to end somewhere, and she’s the only one that can follow it. 

*

The gold line leads across the galaxy, to an old Star Destroyer that is barely staying afloat in space. There is a boy of only six years old cramped into a dormitory of other children, tears in his eyes and bruises along his body from training. She stares at the tattered remains of men and women that support the Empire more than anything else, and then she looks at the children that have been sntached from parent’s arms, and ponders. She reaches for this boy, tentatively, but his mind is changed from conditioning- there is no name in his head, only a string of numbers that feel rough and unnatural around him. 

She twines herself around him, notes that glimmer of her power that has been there since birth, and promises herself something. 

Her family will not go through another war. 

*

Rey grows at a steady pace, earning more than her fair share of bruises and scrapes. Her twin cousins are only a month younger than her, and the trio of them gets into more trouble than they’re worth. She refers to Grogu as her older brother even as she shoots up in height, and starts to carry him on her shoulders when he can no longer keep up with her strides. 

She sits in on Mara and Luke’s classes, looking at the students; her and Jaina and Jacen teasing Ben whenever he turns around to look at the back of the class. Luke teaches her how to do the mind trick, and regrets it only a little when she uses it on her uncle Han to get him to give his children and niece and nephew more cookies before dinner. Mara teaches her how to move like a Jedi, gracefully; more than often it turns from actual lessons to dancing, with both mother and daughter laying on the ground in smiling heaps. Din teaches her sign language and as many other languages as he can, naturally leaving in the swears as long as she doesn’t mention it to her mom and dad; she always asks when him and Luke will teach her how to fly, to an insistent degree. 

When she is thirteen years old and has finally started her full training, cousin Ben attacks her family and the students and leaves. It is a shock to all. Few students died, many are injured, Leia and Han show up at the school in a rush. Rey doesn’t know how to feel. Jania spits into the dirt and says Ben is dead to her, even as her lip trembles; Jacen stays quiet and sullen, refusing to meet anyone's eyes. Her mother and  _ buir _ are angry, constantly checking her to make sure she and Grogu are alright; she has never seen her father this sad, massaging the place where his prosthetic meets skin. 

_ Don’t worry,  _ she says, to Luke and his daughter,  _ something like this has happened before.  _ She thinks of Anakin.  _ It will all work out.  _ She is not sure either of them believe it. 

Rey excels at her training, enough that the other students start looking to her for an example. She starts asking Din to let her practice with his spear, and he allows it, letting her learn how to throw her weight into an extension of herself. When she gets to build her own saber she asks if she can make it double bladed. Rey ignites her blades, and they both come out a shining gold color, just like the sunshine she is named after. “Duel blades for twin suns,” Mara teases Luke as he groans and Din laughs. 

Rey continues to grow and train. Unlike Jania she likes the Alderaanian hairstyles her aunt sports, starts wearing her hair in three buns along the back that only her father can accurately tie before she learns how to do it herself. Grogu takes after the way of the Mandalorian more than the Jedi; her brother wears armor and helmet that matches their  _ buir _ , he wears the sigil of the mudhorn on his shoulder impressed in metal, she has it inked onto her skin in kind. 

They learn of the First Order, of the Sith by the name of Kylo Ren. The Solo twins seem to see red whenever they hear their brother’s new name, Jacen fumes and Jania swings her saber harder. The blue spirits of the family come to offer advice, though Aunt Leia shuns the man that the three children call grandfather, and Rey learns form from the very same man that taught her father.

She is nineteen when the First Order, the crumbs of the Empire, decide to make their move. Rey stands with her saber and thinks, this is when we stop them.

Her great-grandmother watches the gold string steadily going slack and says  _ Oh darling, you have no idea.  _

The boy may not remember his parents, but he has more than enough siblings. The boys and girls that line the broken halls consider themselves brothers and sisters; they have no names that they can remember, so they come up with nicknames to call each other. It reminds her so much of the clones, but they were loved by their generals, and these children are considered nothing but a stepping stone to a greater world. 

They learn all the names of the war heroes: Luke, Leia, Han, Lando. Instead of being taught that they are heroes, they learn of them as terrorists, murderers that destroyed the might of Palpatine. Jedi are weaklings that don’t understand the Force, and only the way of the Sith is truly right. The boy keeps the fact that he ever so slightly feels her presence to himself, menations to none of his brothers and sisters that sometimes when he mentally begs their superiors not to notice him their gaze will go hazy and they will turn away from him. Deep down, he knows that she is with him, but it is a terrifying thought, so he hides her. 

He gets white armor fitted to his person, learns how to shoot straight. Her power makes it so he never misses, but excelling means drawing attention to himself, so he purposely misses to stay in the middle of the pack. When he is sixteen the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa joins the First Order, and it is all anyone can whisper about for weeks. Whenever Kylo’s eyes hit his he feels paranoia shoot through him, sure that the Sith will see her mark no matter how much he tries to hide it. Kylo always has a sneer on his face, convinced that Anakin would want this for him, never mind the fact that he blocks out the messages from Anakin himself. 

The boy is twenty-three when they tell him he will be going to battle for the first time. He is in his armor, another nameless soldier in the hoard, when the ship moves out. His grip is tight on the handle of his blaster. He looks at the metal that will soon be heated from use, and he thinks this is when everything changes.

She looks at that string shining against all this white and black and says,  _ Only for the better.  _

*

“Are you sure they’ll be good for each other?” Anakin asks. He worries about his family more than her, though she supposes that is the human side of him. He can see the thread as well now; he just does not trust it as well as she does. 

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Obi-wan says. He always sounds calm. 

_ Of course they will. You two had that as well, you know, _ she says. The two of them can see her now, but she is never sure exactly how they see her. It’s a personal question, she knows, so she will never ask. 

“We did? You never told me that,” Anakin argues. She laughs.

_ You two, and Padme were all connected.  _ They fall silent at that. Padme may not have as strong a mark on her soul, but she floats around from time to time. Unlike Obi-wan she’s not as forgiving, and she and Anakin have reached a tedious understanding between love and wariness. 

“They’ll be perfectly fine then,” Obi-wan said, and while Anakin remains silent she can tell he is anxious. She pushes some calm towards him, looking on as the gold thread gets slacker and slacker.

_ Everyone is going to be okay.  _

*

The battle, if it can even be called that, is as short as it is chaotic. Rey lunges forward in battle beside her father, mother, and cousins. Her brother and  _ buir _ take to the skies to demolish the ships the First Order is riding in on. She fights just as well as any of her parents, but in the middle of the battlefield the string finally pools at her feet. 

The boy’s gun isn’t even warm, because he can't even find it in himself to shoot. On his helmet is a bloody handprint from one of his sisters as she died in front of him, and he drops his gun and takes off his helmet and looks like he is about to be sick. She brushes against his chin, tries to calm the horrors of war, and whispers  _ Look up.  _

Stormtrooper eyes meet those of a Jedi.

They look at each other like no one ever has. 

*

It takes a while, no matter how much Rey vouched for the boy, but most of the people she knows worked in the rebellion before and do not find his white armor trustable. Poe Dameron is the one that finally turns the public opinion around, a man that Rey has known for most of her life. Leia treats him more like a son than a New Republic pilot; he’s the only one that has ever been able to beat Han and Lando at poker. He saddles right up to the boy and asks for his name, and learns that the soldiers aren’t given any. Poe rolls the letters and numbers around in his mouth, looking like he’s sucking on a lemon. 

“Hm, too much of a mouth full. What about...Finn?” She knows taking away a person's name is something that hurts more than anything, they did it with the clones, they did it with her son. Finn’s eyes light up in a new way, because he has now been handed something that no one has ever given him. 

“Yeah, I like that,” he says. 

Poe, Rey, and the newly appointed Finn are somewhat inseparable from that point on. She likes seeing them so happy, even as anxiety simmers over the possibility of a newly growing Empire. Poe gives Finn one of his old flight jackets, the branding of the New Republic on his back instead of regulation wear that smells like chemicals. It is when Rey drags him to a family dinner, and Finn faces the people he heard were terrorists all his childhood, that it happens. Luke Skywalker looks him in the eyes and sees that glimmer that marks his wife, daughter, sister, nephews, niece, students. 

“You’re force sensitive,” he says. It is far easier to hide her touch from fascists than those that can trace their lineage all the way back to her. Finn seems to sink into himself, so used to being in the middle of the pack, so unused to being special. 

_ It’s alright _ , she whispers as she looks at this home, full of people she has known perhaps better than most,  _ this is my family. They won’t hurt you. _ Finn has known more hurt than people are meant to, but she can feel comfort settling into his bones when he gives her grandson the tiniest nod. 

“We can teach you!” Rey says, always excitable, still managing to glare at Jania and Jacen until they agree. It’s unsurprising that they succumb to her glare, she did learn it from Mara. It’s not healthy for people to hide her gift, to tramp it down. It hurts, hiding such a crucial part. It is no surprise when Finn answers yes.

*

The attack happens only two months after Finn agrees to the training. It is at night, when Rey and Finn are together, using their powers to pass multiple objects back and forth. It is less training and more talking, especially because Poe will be on his way back with food for them to all share. 

Rey senses her cousin before she sees him, the Sith with the red blade, the crossguard more noticeable than anything. She demands that Finn run, get the rest of the family, but he is more protective of her than he wants to save himself. 

She does not like seeing two members of her family fight, but it is not the first time. 

Red clashes against gold, and soldiers slip past them to flood the rest of the settlement, and Kylo spits in her face. “You don’t deserve the Skywalker name! You are nothing.” His voice is altered furiously from the mask, but the anger is something Rey can almost feel. Kylo reaches for something at his hip, something that glimmers with a bit of her power, the saber hilt that he pulls out makes her want to drop down and swat it out of his hand. Everyone thought that blade was lost on Cloud City, she has no idea how he found it, wonders if Rey even knows what he is holding. 

She waits for the blue to explode in the night, for Rey to be taken aback because she hasn’t noticed, when Kylo goes flying backward into a group of his own soldiers. They all topple in the grass, Anakin’s old saber rolling to a stop at Rey’s feet. Finn stands behind her, arm outstretched, in awe at himself, “You aren’t nothing,” is all he manages to say. 

They hear the yelling and the sound of everyone else running towards them. Kylo and his goons leave licking their wounds, and Luke stares at the hilt his daughter holds in her hands. He takes it in his metal hand, and she isn’t sure if anyone besides her and Leia realize the intensity of the moment, especially as he hands it to Finn. “Take it,” he says. Finn hesitates, before letting the metal mold to the contours of his palm, igniting it and bathing his face in blue.

“Are you sure?” he asks, quietly, even as people move quickly around them. 

“At least until you build your own.”

*

No one manages to sleep after the attack, though Rey and her cousins aren’t allowed to be in the war meeting between all their parents. Finn sits with his head in Rey’s lap, staring at his new saber, running it over in his hands to get familiar. Poe listens to Rey regal the whole tale of Finn absolutely bashing Kylo into the dust, Grogu’s head swiveling between his sister and the pilot. It is when Jania and Jacen walk in, R2D2 on their heels, they know it’s come down to something. She looks at her great-grandchildren and knows what they are about to do. 

“Good, you have Dameron,” Jania says, hands on her hips, fire in her eyes. 

“I’m right here,” Poe says, but the humor is flat. They have all been shaken. 

“Right. Anyway.” Her brown eyes swivel between them all. “This has gone on long enough. First Order ends tonight.” She has the swagger and fire of her mother, her grandfather. She is as pretty as Padme, but not as diplomatic. Jacen, behind her, says nothing, but lets his hand brush over his own hilt. 

“Says who?” Rey asks, already picking up her saber from the table, already Finn and Poe are on their feet. Jacen looks up, meets all of their eyes. 

“We do.”

*

The plan is simple, and matches plans that their parents and grandparents have had during their own battles. A small ship that can run undetected, though it barely fits all of them, and Grogu has to sit in his sister’s lap. They stop talking altogether when Poe threatens to turn the ship around if Jania and Rey don’t stop backseat driving. The ship is stealthy, undetectable due to cloaking and the fact that the old Star Destroyer isn’t in good enough shape to find them in the first place. 

She looks over them in the halls, covering their signatures as they hide, and it is easy; not many people on this ship have trained in her ways. When the group decides to split, she is worried, even as they walk off. Jania and Jacen go to the bridge, hands clasped as they silently run. Poe and Finn slide away to the Stromtropper barracks, because Finn refuses to leave them, he’s even brought his bloodied helmet to try to change their minds. Rey is on her own in the hall when Grogu and R2 start to head away. “ _ Where are you going _ ,” Rey signs. Grogu has never been very verbal, the whole family uses sign language around him. His little hands move fast.  _ “Cut off the power supply to the shields.”  _

_ “Be careful.” _

Rey is alone in the hall, officers passing as she lets out a breath. There was a reason, of course, that they chose this hall to split off in; Rey’s job is to deal with the small amount of Darktroopers they’ve managed to put together. She steps out into the hall, ignites twin blades of yellow, and makes herself known. 

Finn and Poe are silent as they get to the barracks, the plastic helmet in Finn’s hand becoming covered in sweat. Poe keeps a steadying hand on Finn’s shoulder when they finally get there. He stands on a bench, and announces his number instead of his name, and instead of sounding the alarm all the men and women around them look relieved and happy. She can tell Poe is surprised, even with the knowledge the New Republic now has about how Stromtroppers are made, because he expected them to sound the alarm instantly. 

“We all know we aren’t worth anything to the First Order,” Finn says. “They kidnapped us, conditioned us, they made us kill for them! Die for them!” He lifts the helmet. “This is the blood of one of our sisters, who died in a battle none of us had any choice in. I’ve made my choice. I am not going to kill for them! None of us have to! We can change our lives, right here, right now!”

“How are you going to change anything,” someone yells from the back. Finn does not lose his stride. 

“I’m here with my friends, and we’re working to stop the First Order right now.”

“How can they do anything?” Finn smiles, unhooks Anakin’s saber from his belt, and ignites it. The blade shines and hums, and she can feel the awe in the people surrounding them. This is the stuff of legends right in front of them; it is not the lightsaber that gives them hope, but one of their own holding it. 

“Because they’re Jedi.  _ I _ am a Jedi.” 

It does not take much at all after that. 

Jacen and Jania run through the ship, green and violet sabers bared, and there is such anger in their faces that everyone jumps out of their way. They ignore officers, block any blasts aimed at them, and it is only when they get to the darkest portion of the ship that they stop. Their breathing echoes around the empty space, and she gives them all the courage she can. 

The darkness lights up crimson, and the twins stop, shift into their stances as their older brother stalks toward them. His mask is still on, and she finds it horrendous; she is reminded of Anakin never being able to really take off his helmet, how this man has a choice. “Brother. Sister.” Jania looks like she’s ready to leap, but Jacen speaks first. 

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he says. “You could still come back.” She knows, even if no one else in the family does, that Jacen came very close to the dark when his older brother defected. He is still shaky even now, even as his grip on his hilt is strong. 

“No, I can’t.” Jacen grinds his teeth. 

“Ben-”

“Kylo.” Ren shrugs, swings his lightsaber around in his hand. “I have to thank you for coming here. You have to let the past die, and you two are the closest thing to my past.” 

“We’re your  _ family _ ,” Jania spits. 

“That’s why I have to do this.”

She does not have the strength to watch what happens next. 

Grogu is fast, and the droid is good at tech. The tiny boy fits into the duct nicely, and he uses his small saber to slice wires. The sparking doesn’t annoy him, considering the berserker, and he finds great joy when he hears the cursing of the officers in the halls as the lights flicker. Until a grate gets pulled out, and he is met with wild red hair and green eyes narrowed into a glare. R2 beeps beside her. 

_ “Hi mom,” _ Grogu signs. Mara sighs and pulls him out of the duct. 

“You and your sister have a lot of explaining to do, you little womp rat,” she says and signs to him. She socks a running officer in the face before gesturing to him to follow her.

_ Well, little one _ , she chuckles,  _ they were going to find out eventually.  _

Rey has underestimated how durable Darktroopers are, having never faced them before. They are designed specifically to fight Jedi, and though there are only four, she is having a hard time landing solid hits. Sweat is making strands of her hair stick to her forehead, and she is going to be overwhelmed sooner rather than later. She has managed to cut off an arm and a leg, though the thing is still coming, when a black blade twinged with a white aura slices it neatly in half. Rey looks at her  _ buir’s _ silver helmet and black visor and winces. 

“When we get back home,” Din says in a calm voice, “you are grounded.” The gold of her blades reflects off his armor. “No lightsaber for-for a month!”

“What? I-I’m not a child!” Rey says, and her frustration causes the black metal carcass to ping down the hall. 

“Yes, but you are still my daughter,” Din says, blaster already out and going. Across the hall Luke slices one, and uses his free hand to crush another.

“Dad-”

“Listen to your  _ buir _ , sweetie,” he says without even looking at her. Mara appears with Grogu in tow, slicing the last Darktrooper’s head in sections like a fruit.

“Mom-”

“Listen to your fathers, sweetie.”

“Argh!” 

She smiles at the sight of the little family. It took awhile to get here, she supposes, but it was well worth it. 

It is after Finn and Poe have led the Stromtrooper army throughout the ship, and the officers are rounded up and interrogated, and it is learned that the entirety of the First Order really is on this one ship, that Jacen and Jania finally find their way back to the group. 

They know they are in trouble because their mother has a lightsaber attached to her hip, and even if she has the training, Leia rarely carries it. She stops in her rant when she realizes Jacen’s eyes are red and puffy, that Jania is sniffling and constantly lifting her head to the ceiling. Leia cups both of their cheeks and slightly whispers to them, “Ben?”

Jacen says nothing, Jania shakes her head as silent tears drip down her cheeks. Leia decides yelling can wait for tomorrow. 

She cradles the newly passed soul of her great-grandson and whispers to him  _ It’s alright now. It will take time, but you’ll heal.  _

He hums in her embrace, and she knows he’ll come back to himself in time. 

“I don’t know if we can blame them for doing it,” Han says. The ship back home is full to the brim, the youngers sleeping, the parents all in the cockpit. Luke shoots Han a warning look, because not only is his wife glaring at him, but Mara and Din are as well. He shrugs. “Look at who their parents are.”

“They still shouldn’t have left. They should not have made the decision.” Leia takes in a shaky breath. “They shouldn’t have had to.” Luke moves from his place between Mara and Din, untangling his hands from theirs, wraps his arms around his sister. 

“Then we make sure they never have to again.”

*

“Did you ever make up your own last name?” Poe asks. Finn and Jacen pause in their training. Rey and Jania sit beside him, taking turns throwing candies into Grogu’s mouth. Finn shrugs. 

“Not really. I couldn’t come up with one.”

“You could take one,” Jania says. Poe brightens.

“Yeah! You could be a Skywalker, Solo, Jade, Djarin,” Poe winks, “a Dameron.” Finn rolls his eyes at him even as the other three laugh. 

“You could even say you’re a Calrissien,” Jacen says, “Uncle Lando wouldn’t mind.”

_ It doesn’t really matter, _ she says, looking at them all,  _ you’ll be family whichever one you choose.  _

“Doesn’t matter,” Rey says, and she pauses, wondering if her grand-daughter has grown more connected to her than she thought. But no, Rey does not look up towards her or acknowledge her at all, just continues speaking as she pops a candy into her mouth. “You’re still family.” 

_ Exactly right. And what a wonderful family it is. _

*

She watches them like she always has, twining around them all, though she is a bit spread thin. She feels a presence come up next to her; she ignores it at first, because Anakin, Obi-wan, or Padme are always coming up to talk to her these days. She does not realize it is someone entirely different until arms slip around her middle and lips find their way to her neck. 

“Our family is lovely, isn’t it?” says a voice she has not heard in years. 

_ I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, _ she says, melts into Shmi’s arms. 

“It took me a while, but I managed,” Shmi whispers. “Without your gifts it was a bit difficult to get here.”

She hums, looks down and sees them all, Rey and Jania laughing at something Poe has said; Finn and Jacen sparring, Grogu directing them as he rides around on the top of R2D2’s head. 

_ Oh darling. _ She turns and kisses Shmi on the mouth, a soft brush that she has never experienced, that she wants to experience every day for as long as the universe spins. 

_ I gave you the best gift of all.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it!! My first foray into fanfic since I was like. 12.  
> Sorry if I spelled anything wrong, especially names of people or places.  
> For those that are not entranced in Mando Hell with me, Buir translates to Father.   
> Hope y'all enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken is from the short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," by Harlan Ellison.  
> Anyway! That was the prequal era! What a vibe eh?


End file.
